This invention relates generally to the field of supports and more particularly to shock and vibration damping supports.
Present methods of protecting fragile electronic equipment against shock and vibration in aircraft, ships, and vehicles include varieties of "cup type" isolators and simple or plain resilient plastic foam mounts which may or may not be specifically designed for a particular equipment load and center of gravity. As many as 600 or more standard "cup type" mounting bases are presently in use depending on required dynamic performance, as well as dimensional and load ranges of the equipment being mounted. Inadvertent interchanging of mounting bases depending solely on size consideration is one of the major causes of equipment failure due to shock or vibration. These mounts must also be compatible with the protected equipment in dynamic response characteristics as well as size. The erroneous selection of a proper sized base without consideration of the correct dynamic characteristics renders the supported equipment vulnerable to various modes of dynamic failure. Due to logistics problems created by the large number of presently available "cup type" isolators and resilient mounts, hostile surroundings, or lack of proper knowledge and understanding of the parameters involved, many mounting base substitution errors are made. One method of eliminating such errors is by properly controlled interfacing between the protected equipment and the mounting base in order to regulate dynamic system response and eliminate may failures due to shock and vibration. By providing as few as ten standard sized mounting bases ranging in size from 5.times.8 inches to 16.times.15 inches to replace the present myriad of isolators and mounts, and controlling dynamic response by proper interface design, significant logistics reductions as well as greater compatibility and interchangeability of mounting bases can be achieved.